Research

In order for a metazoan to develop from a fertilized egg and become an adult organism, it must utilize a complex set of autocrine, paracrine, and endocrine molecular networks. While large-scale gene expression analyses of cell, tissue, and whole organisms have uncovered some of these biological systems, complete analysis of all dynamic protein signaling networks have proven to be a challenge. Our lab is focused on this problem by using protein micro-array, mass spectrometric, and cell biological tools to study protein-protein interactions, protein abundance dynamics, post-translational modifications, and interaction pathway activities. The overall goal is to better understand the roles of signaling system molecules within critical spatial-temporal contexts to regulate cell growth, migration, differentiation, and apoptosis. These processes lie at the heart of cancer biology. An understanding of these network-based mechanisms will foster the development of new diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents for human diseases. Lab projects are focused on:
1. Analysis of mechanisms of receptor tyrosine kinase signaling in cancers.
2. Large-scale analysis of the SH2-protein recruitment capacity of receptor tyrosine kinases.
3. Large-scale analysis of receptor tyrosine kinase network connectivity.
4. Large-scale analysis of the relationship of human genetic variation, mRNA expression, protein expression, and variation
in response to chemotherapeutic agents.